Migration Without Moving
Polish Books in German Public Libraries During the Second World War. The Examples of the Gdańsk City Library (Danziger Stadtbibliothek) and the Polish Gymnasium in Gdańsk (Gimnazjum Polskie w Gdańsku)
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Abstract
Sometimes the migration of books takes place without displacement: history changes around them, putting libraries in a different political situation and modifying the interpretative context of their collections. The value of their contents may change linguistically, but also according to the ideological needs of the political leaders. In such times, the role of the librarians as the guardians of the library is important: to a large extent, it is up to them to decide who is authorised to get a book – who may be trusted with the knowledge. Those employed in large, ‘historical’ libraries with centuries of scholarly traditions are entrusted the liberty of collecting the writings labelled ‘rebellious’, ‘sacrilegious’ or ‘politically incorrect’, intended in an exclusive manner for ‘properly’ educated people, capable of giving them an adequate interpretation. Such was the case of the Gdańsk Library during World War II. It was founded in 1596 as “Bibliotheca Senatus Gedanensis”, in a city where the German and Polish influences have always been encountering one another. As the Gdańsk Library reflected the world around it, from the outbreak of the Second World War books from looted local collections were brought to the institution, resulting in the paradoxical situation of an official German protection over several hundred books in a locally banned Polish language, allowing them to survive during the war, albeit in an entirely new context.